Office politics (science of)

Theory:
Realism. Political outcomes are attributable to the distribution of power amongst actors (cf. Machiavelli, Hobbes, Marx, Chinese Communist Party).

Unit of analysis:
Graduate student

Dependent variable:
Office space

Independent variable:
Subject matter of academic work

Causal mechanism:
Patronage. Professors will allocate office space to graduate students who work in their area of interest.

Hypothesis:
Desirability of graduate student's office space will co-vary with power of professors interested in graduate student's topic.

Evidence:
I started the year with a drab, moldy basement cubicle. Two weeks ago I presented an international political economy paper in graduate seminar. It was well received. Today, the director of the powerful political economy center offered me a new office which has "suddenly" come free (see figure one). It is spacious, sunlit, clean, stocked with computer equipment, and sits a few doors down the hall from Paul Krugman.

Fig. 1

Inference:
Power matters. Patronage is a powerful force in academia.

Policy implications:
Write what they want to hear.

Normative implications:
But at what cost?